The rise of citizen journalism

by Chris Leong

Citizen journalism according to Wikipedia

Citizen journalism, also known as public or participatory journalism or democratic journalism[1], is the act of non-professionals “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information,” according to the seminal report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information, by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis. They say, “The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires

I’m always amaze on how technology has put more power to people. Now blogs, Twitter, Facebook are gradually replacing traditional journalism in providing first hand news to the public. There are countless example of how technology have change how news are brought to us.

The first picture of the US Airways crash was actually provided by one of its passenger via Twitter. Janis Krums from Sarasota, Florida posts the first photo of U.S. Airways flight on Twitter. These are the little things that amaze me on the power of technology.